The other day, I made a somewhat facetious comment on Facebook that I was going to get this SB3 final battle scene right even if it killed me, complete with fist shaking at the sky, because funny but at the same time 100% serious.
And while it sometimes really does feel like our rough drafts want to kill us, I wasn't frustrated, or feeling the inexplicable urge to dust my house. I'm experienced enough at this point to recognize that what I wrote wasn't good enough for the story - especially when this particular battle was only meant to be a precursor to the actual final battle. . . which will now be at the end of book 4. So I knew going into edits that this chunk of the book would need a major rewrite. It's been slow going, because I had to add some pieces here, adjust other pieces there, add in a whole new space battle scene there, and then Frankenstein it all together. But I was mad cackling last night, because *damn*. This is sooooo much better than the original scene. I've still got a few sections that I haven't worked on yet, but I can already feel it. It's RIGHT. Note that I didn't say perfect. That's a deliberate word choice.
We all want our stories to be perfect, but it's never going to happen. A book can go through multiple beta readers and editors, and still get published with typos, or minor plot holes, or scenes that were just a little rough. And that's okay. If we tried to get everything perfect, nothing would ever get published. Marisa Wolf and I were talking about this the other night, and there was a tweet floating around that made us legit cackle. Something about God grant me the confidence and perseverance of a typo that's made it through 45 rounds of edits. Because TRUTH. So I'm not going for perfect. I'm going for right. Even if it takes longer than I want. Even if I have to fight off the urge to dust my house. I'm going to get it right, and it'll be an awesomely imperfect story when I'm done ; )
Until next week, folks!!
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